Public Comment by Mary Ann Vitone to Wheaton City Council on April 21, 2014

I spoke at the last City Council meeting two weeks ago regarding smart meters and my concerns with them.

In the past two weeks the Mayor and City Council have received articles regarding smart meters – the most compelling one being from Norstar Utility Company in Massachusetts.

Yes – a utility company – questioning the “small incremental benefits afforded by AMI “(aka Smart Meters) – Not the smart grid – (2 separate entities). Their legal brief states that there is no “evidence that this is a good choice for customers.” “There is ample evidence that this technology will be unduly costly for customers – customers will pay the price.” “Smart meters do not reduce the number of outages.” The document goes on to point out the safety and health risks as well as the cyber security risks. They also mention that “only 46% of customers are aware of the concept of smart meters – and of that 46% – 33% associate smart metering complaints of meter inaccuracy, higher customer bills, invasion of privacy and health concerns.”

Kudos to Norstar utility company, for actually looking at objective data, and looking out for the customer.

But here in Illinois we have Com Ed, who try to sell us on a 3rd party report – that they paid to have done and yet on their website regarding smart meter resource center and I quote:

No representation is made by Com Ed as to the completeness or accuracy of the information contained within this information. In particular, some information may be incomplete, may contain errors or may be out of date.”

Therefore it appears that Com Ed is taking no responsibility or liability for these smart meter claims or potential issues.

I obtained from the City of Wheaton the Franchise Agreement that exists between the City of Wheaton and Com Ed – it appears that the City of Wheaton does have authority over Com Ed.

Section 9 – 9.1 Police Powers:

The city reserves the right to adopt from time to time, in addition to the provisions contained herein – rules and regulations as the Corporate Authorities may deem necessary in the exercise of the police power for the protection of the health, safety and welfare of the citizens and their properties.

The Mayor and the City Council have been given enough compelling evidence to question all 3 of those (health, safety and welfare) from smart meters – but have still insisted on shilling for Com Ed instead of looking out for the citizens.

I have asked on more than one occasion that the City send a notice with the water bill regarding smart meters – but have been told it is cost prohibitive –however we received a flyer regarding earth day in the water bill – is that cost prohibitive? The City sent out a sheet regarding lawn sprinkler systems and hot tubs in the water bill to be filled out and sent back to the city – is that cost prohibitive?

The lack of transparency and the lack of willingness on the city’s part to let the residents know, first of all that smart meters are coming to our neighborhood – that we can “opt out” and how to “opt out” – and the overall protection and shilling you are giving to Com Ed is troubling to say the least.

I believe that the taxpayers of Wheaton pay the salaries of the City employees – not Com Ed –

I believe that the City employees work for the residents – not for Com Ed

And I believe that the city was lax in looking into these smart meters and all of the evidence out there that questions privacy, safety, health and costs – and did not do their due diligence in looking out for the residents.

All we are asking is that the City let residents know, to let the residents do their own research on smart meters and let the residents decide if they want a smart meter –

Since Com Ed doesn’t seem to want to take on any liability for any safety, privacy, health or cost issues with these – is the City of Wheaton going to? Since you are doing everything in your power to aid Com Ed in the deployment of these – instead of letting the residents of Wheaton decide.

One thought on “Public Comment by Mary Ann Vitone to Wheaton City Council on April 21, 2014”

Just a “heads-up”. I called ComEd and they will allow a DELAY of installing the smart meters; however, they set it up (according to Bryan from ComEd) with the ICC so that ComEd will charge about $20 if you opt out of the switch over. AND eventually they will switch it out anyway. No way out.